Saffron Coulter has returned from the fantasy kingdom of Kena. Threatened with a stay in psychiatric care, Saffron has to make a choice: to forget about Kena and fit back into the life she’s outgrown, or pit herself against everything she’s ever known and everyone she loves.

Meanwhile in Kena, Gwen is increasingly troubled by the absence of Leoden, cruel ruler of the kingdom, and his plans for the captive worldwalkers, while Yena, still in Veksh, must confront the deposed Kadeja. What is their endgame? Who can they trust? And what will happen when Leoden returns?

I’m so immensely thrilled with this book, and I can’t wait to see what people think of it. Writing it was a labour of love: it felt like something I’d been working towards for a long time – for longer, perhaps, than I’d even had the idea of the series – and hopefully, at least a fraction of that comes out in the writing.

One of the perils of being an innately contrary, frequently combative person is that you sometimes find yourself backed into a corner entirely of your own making, attacking in defence for no better reason than that it doesn’t occur to you to do otherwise. My psyche is friable of late; that doesn’t excuse bad behaviour.

Yesterday evening, I put up a thread of tweets about my editorial experience with my forthcoming book, A Tyranny of Queens. My comments were made in response to a different thread about fellow genderqueer author JY Yang’s difficulties in having the singular they accepted in their work. The thread struck a powerful chord with me: I felt moved to reply, and did so, as I often do in such instances.

The issue itself is important; vitally so. But the approach I took in broaching it was not.

In writing the thread, I made an early factual error: the editor in question, Amanda Rutter, was my structural editor, not my CE. That distinction is an obvious and crucial one to other, more experienced writers and professionals, but I am still a journeyman in that respect; I apologise for the confusion. I also erred in assuming that, because I hadn’t named Amanda directly, I’d somehow left her out of it; that I was discussing her editing in, not exactly a vacuum, but a context where her identity was both ambiguous and beside the point. I thought – inasmuch as it occurred to me to think – that, even assuming someone did realise who I was talking about, it wouldn’t actually matter, because the actual issue was a wider one.

As a social media veteran, I should have known better. I should have thought better, and I’m very sorry that I didn’t.

In referencing Amanda as clearly as I did – in citing her comments without first giving her warning or recourse to response; in letting my personal upset colour my discussion of an issue that exists beyond me – I behaved both badly and unprofessionally. My sincere apologies to Amanda for doing this; she deserved better of me.

I would also like to apologise to my publisher, Angry Robot, and to all the amazing people there who’ve worked with me, especially Marc Gascoigne and Phil Jordan. A Tyranny of Queens is a book which I’m immensely proud to have written, and the final product would be nowhere near as strong without the feedback, help and encouragement I’ve received from the AR team. Though hindsight renders the conviction both naïve and ridiculous, I can say with utter sincerity that I never intended any criticism of Angry Robot, whom I’ve always felt honoured to work with, and I’m furious with myself for slighting them in any way. I’m deeply sorry for this.

I’m sorry for putting my agency, Red Sofa Literary, in a position where they had to deal with my unprofessionalism, and I’m sorry for letting my actions detract from a very serious and necessary conversation, one I should have had the sense to contribute to in a far more productive manner.

It has long been my position that deleting things you said on the internet as a belated form of takebacks is a bad idea. For one thing, screenshots and retweets exist: removing the originals doesn’t ever stop their circulation, but rather tends to increase it, as the act of retraction makes more people eager to see and preserve what was (intemperately or wrongly) said. For another, and with very few exceptions, it strikes me as a gross way of pretending that the conversation never actually took place, like a form of self-distancing. This is why I’m leaving the thread itself intact: other conversations more useful than the original have sprung up from it and within it, and in a forum like Twitter, deleting any retweeted content is rather akin to shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. I said these things, and now I have apologised for them, and I hope that a more productive conversation will subsequently come from it.

At long last, Speculative Fiction 2015 is here! I was lucky enough to co-edit this anthology of essays with the excellent Mark Oshiro, and it’s now out with Book Smugglers Publishing. This is a really wonderful collection of pieces from a range of fantastic authors, and while there’s something bittersweet in knowing it’s the last of the annual Speculative Fiction anthologies, I feel extremely proud of what we’ve produced.

In the same vein, I’m thrilled to share with you the cover for my forthcoming novel, A Tyranny of Queens, due out in May 2017 from Angry Robot. This book is the sequel to An Accident of Stars, and I’m really excited to see what people think of it. The official cover release is over at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog, where ATOQ was also recently included in a list of 25 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Sequels We Can’t Wait to Read in 2017. (Which, I am honestly so fucking thrilled and flattered to be on that list with so many incredible books and authors, oh my actual god.)

Check out this gorgeous cover, with art by the always amazing Julie Dillon:

Blurb:

Saffron Coulter has returned from the fantasy kingdom of Kena. Threatened with a stay in psychiatric care, Saffron has to make a choice: to forget about Kena and fit back into the life she’s outgrown, or pit herself against everything she’s ever known and everyone she loves.

Meanwhile in Kena, Gwen is increasingly troubled by the absence of Leoden, cruel ruler of the kingdom, and his plans for the captive worldwalkers, while Yena, still in Veksh, must confront the deposed Kadeja. What is their endgame? Who can they trust? And what will happen when Leoden returns?

In other recent news, I have two podcast interviews available – one with Sherin Nicole and Day Al-Mohamed at Geek Girl Riot, and the other with Megan Leigh at Breaking the Glass Slipper. I had a great time recording both of these – I hope you enjoy listening to them, too!